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A Smoother Helicopter Ride

By Haochuan Ni | Published: June 27, 2012

Imagine a pole with an egg on top being balanced on the tip of your finger. It takes considerable dexterity and reflexes to maintain the balance. Attempting to navigate around a room while maintaining a balance is a feat that few can accomplish.

Imagine this scenario up-scaled to a helicopter carrying supplies slung underneath it. The swinging pendulum of cargo underneath the helicopter can have adverse and dangerous effect on the aircraft\’s handling and performance.

However, researchers from the University of New Mexico are developing algorithms that will enable robots to mitigate the pendulum effect of the underslung cargo. This technology is currently undergoing tests in quad-rotor vehicles, shown below.

Once refined, this technology can improve the safety of manned helicopters and be a significant advancement for the development of autonomous aircraft.

Full story:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/artificial-intelligence/quadrotor-learns-how-not-to-swing-stuff

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Robot That Will Beat You at Rock-Paper-Scissors Every Time

By Chinmay Jaju | Published: June 26, 2012

This research focuses on creating a robot to play rock-paper-scissors with a 100% winning rate as one example of human-machine cooperation systems. Human being plays one of rock, paper and scissors at the timing of one, two, three. According to the timing, the robot hand plays one of three kinds so as to beat the human being.

 

 

Recognition of human hand can be performed at 1ms with a high-speed vision, and the position and the shape of the human hand are recognized. The wrist joint angle of the robot hand is controlled based on the position of the human hand. The vision recognizes one of rock, paper and scissors based on the shape of the human hand. After that, the robot hand plays one of rock, paper and scissors so as to beat the human being in 1ms.

This technology is one example that show a possibility of cooperation control within a few miliseconds. And this technology can be applied to motion support of human beings and cooperation work between human beings and robots etc. without time delay

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Can Robots Be Our Friends?

By Chinmay Jaju | Published: June 25, 2012

I know the answer to that question for me personally is an undeniable YES! just look at the cute, awesome robots that the Yale-led research team have been working on. The group, under the direction of Yale Computer Science Professor Brian Scassellati will spend the next five years developing a new breed of sophisticated “socially assistive” robots for helping people overcome cognitive disabilities.

The purpose of the $10 million, federally funded effort, announced April 3, is to create self-adapting machines capable of cultivating long-term interpersonal relationships and assisting pre-school-age children with educational and therapeutic goals.

“The big idea is that we’re building robots to help kids. At the end of five years we’d like to have robots that can guide a child toward long-term educational goals, be customized for the particular needs of that child, and basically grow and develop with the child. We want the robot to be the equivalent of a good personal trainer.” -Scassellati

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Spiny Finger Grippers for Outer Space

By Chinmay Jaju | Published: June 24, 2012

Task Image

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) has been working on a way to grasp onto asteroids to hold on while drilling into them. Ideally, you want some system that can reliably anchor a robot to an uneven surface while simultaneously providing enough downforce in microgravity to allow for sample collection, and this is where the microspines come in.

JPL’s microspine anchors are capable of quickly attaching and detaching from a variety of surface types using an actuator with just one degree of freedom. The anchor provides enough force (on surfaces ranging from vertical to inverted) for a percussion drill operating though the anchor to take core samples, and it’s robust enough to survive over a hundred anchoring sequences with a structure that’s designed to be space-durable

 

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Wearable Multitouch Projector

By Brent Yi | Published: June 23, 2012

Microsoft’s Research department seems to do a lot of work related to depth cameras, which has resulted in some pretty incredible stuff, including this “Wearible Multitouch Projector.”

Have you ever seen a SmartBoard? It’s a bit like one one of those, but portable, and compatible with every surface you can possibly imagine, not just a whiteboard( that doesn’t even function as a whiteboard ) fixed to a wall. Whether it’s your hand, the wall, or a notepad, Microsoft’s creation can project an interactive touchscreen onto it.

The current design may look a little clumsy and awkward, but with a bit of work, this technology could redefine portable electronics!

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Robotic Cameraman

By Chinmay Jaju | Published: June 21, 2012

A few days ago, we featured a concept for a “smart home” from microsoft. This man has developed a robot for the smart house concept that allows people to film themselves with a camera that tracks their movements and follows them around. Though the robot in the video may seem bulky and complex, the technology needed to do this already exists. In fact, I am sitting at my desk right now with a Logitech webcam that follows and tracks my movements when I am on a video call. Sometimes the technology of the future is literally right there looking at us in the face!

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Meet “Hexy” the Affordable Hexapod

By Chinmay Jaju | Published: June 20, 2012

Joseph Schlesinger has been working on bringing affordable robotics kits to people everywhere. His highly successful kickstarter for the project quickly gained popularity and catapulted Hexy, the small, cute hexapod robot into the spotlight. Though the robot has little practical application, at $200 it is a great introduction to robotics for kids and hobbyists

http://www.viddler.com/v/cb63d93f?secret=84792220

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